Charlotte was the only one of the sisters to marry. She married Arthur Bell Nicholls, a curate who worked with her father and was not particularly liked in the village. I read that he inherited all of her belongings after her death, just nine months after their marriage. Perhaps marriage didn’t suit her after all. He later moved back to his native Ireland and married his cousin. The Honresfield library acquired many of the manuscripts and effects in his possession, so that gave me a spark of hope that I might find some clue there on my visit the following day.
I decided to dine at the inn, which was only a short walk from my lodgings. I ordered a hearty shepherd’s pie and sat by the window, drinking a small glass of gin as an aperitif. I spoke briefly to the landlord, who seemed well versed on all things Bront?. They were starting to make quite a bit of money out of visitors to the parsonage and saw it as their civic duty to fill tourists in on whatever the museum’s curator left out. I sat there, reading Elizabeth Gaskell’s biography of Charlotte Bront?. Unfortunately all that was known about Emily could scarcely fill a page. There was, however, mention of a Martha Brown – the maid who worked at the parsonage. As the landlord’s son cleared my dish and wiped down the table, I ordered another drink and asked if he knew anything about her family, being from the area.
‘Oh aye, the sexton’s daughter. She never married,’ he said, in a way that sounded so desperately forlorn.
I gulped a mouthful of gin. Why was marriage always seen as the key to happiness?
‘So there was no family to look after her when she got sick.’ He continued in his relentless character assassination of the unmarried woman. ‘I think she died alone in a small cottage.’
I took another gulp of gin. My future suddenly looked quite grim.
‘It says here in my book that she inherited quite a bit of the Bront? family memorabilia. I wonder if she had any other relatives she might have passed it on to?’
‘My uncle John went to school with one of her nephews, as it happens.’
I clapped my hands. It felt like I was on a trail.
‘Can I speak with him, your uncle?’
‘He died this past year.’
‘Oh, I am very sorry to hear that,’ I said, keeping my hands clasped as though in prayer for his soul.
‘I do remember him saying that the two brothers had a bookshop down in London. One of them still lives there. Maybe you could enquire there?’
‘Oh, wonderful, do you have the name?’
He looked heavenward for inspiration.
‘Brown’s bookshop?’
‘Quite,’ I said, handing him some coins for my meal before walking back to my accommodation.
My appointment was at 9 a.m. to study the collection at Honresfield. Mr Law was away on business, so his assistant, a very diligent young woman by the name of Miss Pritchett, welcomed me. While the estate was vast and his wealth evident, the house retained a practical atmosphere. One wing was entirely devoted to their remarkable collection of British literature, with manuscripts by Robert Burns, Sir Walter Scott and Jane Austen.
‘Your letter stated that you have an interest in the Bront? collection?’ Miss Pritchett said, opening the large wooden doors to a smaller anteroom. ‘I believe you’ll find everything you need here,’ she said, handing me a catalogue of the library and a pair of soft white gloves. ‘Mr Law asks that every visitor wear these. We must preserve the integrity of the paper.’
‘Of course,’ I agreed, my eyes darting round the walls of shelves containing all sorts of riches, waiting to be discovered. First editions of Pride and Prejudice and Northanger Abbey, no doubt with a fascinating provenance, yet I had to pull my focus to the task at hand. With great care, I eased a first edition of Wuthering Heights from the shelf. I brought it to the table, which had a kind of easel to rest the book on. In its original cloth cover, it was in pristine condition. On the first page, I was intrigued to discover that it was inscribed by the Rev. Patrick Bront? to none other than Martha Brown, the family housekeeper and arguably a much-valued member of the household. My senses were fizzing with connections – what else might she have been bequeathed and where might it have ended up, if not sold at auction?
There were many boxes containing entertaining yet inconsequential letters between the sisters and Ellen Nussey, along with more interesting correspondence between Charlotte and her erstwhile biographer Elizabeth Gaskell. Then things became more interesting. I found a letter from Charlotte to her own publishers, complaining about Thomas Cautley Newby, the man who published Wuthering Heights and Agnes Grey. He was a bit of a scoundrel by all accounts, demanding the sisters pay ￡50 upfront and capitalising on the confusion surrounding the Bell name. The theory at the time was that all three books were authored by one man. Of course, it could not have been further from the truth, as Charlotte and Anne travelled to London to confirm: We are three sisters. Yet Emily remained at home and seemed to prefer the anonymity of a nom de plume. Unlike her sisters, she did not seek recognition from the London literary set, nor did she seem perturbed by Cautley’s greedy character. Perhaps she understood that he was true to his nature, as she was to hers.
I noticed a letter without any address and scanned it rather quickly, as my stomach rumbled, yearning for food. The words caused time itself to stop.
London,
15 February 1848
* * *
Dear Sir,
I am much obliged by your kind note and shall have great pleasure in making arrangements for your next novel. I would not hurry its completion, for I think you are quite right not to let it go before the world until well satisfied with it, for much depends on your new work: if it be an improvement on your first you will have established yourself as a first-rate novelist, but if it falls short the Critics will be too apt to say that you have expended your talent in your first novel. I shall, therefore, have pleasure in accepting it upon the understanding that its completion be at your own time.
Believe me,
My dear Sir
Yrs sincerely
T C Newby
I sat there, blinking at the words in front of me. Your next novel. Here it was, irrefutable proof that Emily, or Ellis Bell, had begun working on a second manuscript. There was no record of the ‘kind note’ she had sent, but there was evidently some hesitation on her part in rushing its publication. Perhaps she was already unwell and felt herself unequal to the task? Or was it more likely that, being a perfectionist, she wished to take more time to complete it? My head buzzed with excitement.
I looked at the entry in the catalogue for further explanation.
* * *
Letter from T.C. Newby found in Emily’s writing desk with an accompanying envelope addressed simply to Acton Bell.
But I knew it couldn’t have been meant for Anne, for her second novel had already been submitted for publication. No, this was a correspondence with Emily regarding her follow-up to Wuthering Heights. I knew it! I sat back in my chair and looked out the long sash windows to the garden. If Charlotte had destroyed Emily’s papers following her death, I would never find the manuscript. My hopes rose and fell with each contradictory argument.
Then I saw something I never would have predicted in a million years. Walking up the drive to the house was a man I was sure I would not see again. Armand Hassan.